Whitworth takes unbeaten streak and top ranking to Whitman

Next up, a battle of the Whits.

Whitworth, which remained No. 1 in the D3hoops.com men’s Top 25 basketball poll for a second straight week, puts its unbeaten (23-0, 14-0 Northwest Conference) record and ranking on the line tonight at conference rival Whitman (17-6, 10-4).

  Whitworth picked up two more first place votes (21) from last week.  Second-place Williams (23-1) has the other four.

Whitworth finishes the regular season on Saturday night at Pacific.

• Washington junior guard Isaiah Thomas is the Pac-10 player of the week.

In earning the award for the third time in his career, Thomas averaged 22.5 points, 5.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds in a sweep of Stanford and California as UW snapped a three-game losing streak.

Junior hockey

Castlegar struck first in the KIJHL playoffs, defeating Spokane 5-1 in the opener of their 7-game series in Castlegar, British Columbia.

Ryan Hadley scored for the Braves.

Game 2 is tonight in Castlegar.

Softball

Shelby Gonzales from Moses Lake ran her personal home run streak to five games, and North Idaho College’s winning streak hit five, as the Cardinals swept Colorado Northwestern for the second day in a row in a pair of Scenic West Athletic Conference games in St. George, Utah, 22-2 and 9-0.

Gonzales (Moses Lake) and Kelsey LaVaute hit back to back home runs in a 14-run third inning of the first game in which Kristina DeAnda and KaSara Wise (North Central) also went deep for NIC (11-10, 6-6 SWAC). Ashley Moon (University) had two doubles and four RBIs. Gonzales’ second homer of the day highlighted NIC’s second-game assault.